The concrete pavers provide the contemporary look.
On the parking patio… he recommends concrete pavers. But, in order to put concrete pavers on that patio we are going to have to pour about a 2" level of concrete to cover up the cracks and black goo someone put in the cracks. Since I have to pay for a concrete pour anyway, I think I will leave it as concrete but with a nice color stain or a stamped pattern. I don’t personally like stamped pattern, but my agent seems to like it. I don’t think there really is a stamped design that is contemporary - they are all fake slate patterns.
There is plenty of room to pour 2" level of concrete because the garage door has about a 3" lip
He has a tree called CVS planted in front of the meter mess
Also, I am going to change the walkway from the driveway. He has 3 steps, I am going to pour a sloped walkway for access to front door directly from driveway without having to use stairs. I want to be able to market ‘no stairs’ for main level living.
The kitchen countertops look great!
Perhaps you can post pictures of the LR/DR in front area of the house so we can see what that space looks like now.
PROGRESS UPDATE
Tried to take a picture through living room from front door but there was too much late afternoon light coming through large patio sliders
We have raised all of our interior walls and framed in the doorways. Installed the 30" pocket door that will enter the bathroom from the bedroom.
Framed in all the windows and doors. Installed three windows and the French door. But we realized we cannot set in the bathroom window and the window in the old garage door area until exterior stucco is complete. This poses a problem because we are supposed to get a building inspection for the black paper and chicken wire stuff that needs to go into the small areas that have to be stucco patched. So, we installed the plywood backing in all the patch areas and we’ll get the paper/lath up on Monday. Then I have to call for an inspection for Tuesday morning before we can start putting on the stucco. It will probably be Thursday morning before we can finish the window installation.
Meanwhile, I had a brilliant idea that I was going to reuse all of the wood that was pulled off the cage area for the driveway side fence. I want to lay it horizontal to give some interest to the fence. I asked the laborer to ‘lightly sand’ the white painted wood prior to installation so that it would be easier to paint later. He misunderstood and started sanding off all of the white paint. Turns out that the wood is a high quality redwood. After looking at the first 4 pieces, for some reason I thought it would be easy to sand off all the white paint and we could put up a natural redwood fence with a nice stain/sealant. We are now on Day 2 of paying labor to sand, with a huge belt sander, white paint off the redwood. Dumb idea, but we are halfway there at this point. Should have just screwed them up to the posts and painted the whole thing. I’m not sure we are going to get that much design wow with the sealed redwood.
The posts are set for the driveway fence and cut to 6 ft height. From the stairway (as you descend) and inside the family room, the 6ft fence still provided a good view. But, if someone is sitting at a dining table on the patio, the view of Sea World is cut off. So, we have decided to lower the last portion of the fence to 3 or 4 ft. Hard to make the judgement without some of the horizontal slats installed.
Kitchen countertop complete and we installed the gas cooktop.
Still trying to find the best solution for glass deck railing and the solid glass backsplash. I will probably pull the trigger on that this week.
We are going to start building staircase on Monday.
Some photos are loaded
Wow!!! That is a ton of progress. 
cb, will your patio be relatively private? In the last photo you posted, it seems as if the neighbor on the next-door deck will be able to look right down onto the patio. I don’t think there’s anything to be done about it.
The ‘neighbors’ on that side are young renters. Absentee landlord. House has a lot of peeling paint and deferred maintenance. Balcony railing is rusting pretty bad. I have only seen a human out on the balcony about once every two weekends - using the BBQ. There are no windows from the house on that side over the parking patio. Nothing we can do about it except build a large patio cover (not in budget). It’s pretty shady on that North side of the house so a patio cover really isn’t necessary. A patio cover over the back deck off the French Door on west side would be nice (and is drawn in the plans by the designer), but not in the budget. Buyers can build it later
This week I need to really focus on how in the world we are going to get done by the last week of September. My agent wants to get on the market by early October because she says sales will slow down in November and December as people stop their home search during the holidays. I’m not sure it really matters - I always seem to make a mess of everything and come out to market in December. It has happened two or three times already.
Original estimate was 12 weeks to do the remodel. But adding the 800sf conversion, with permits and inspections, is pushing us out another 5-6 weeks. Adding some major curb appeal projects, glass deck railing and exterior painting (which is going to require some sophisticated safety scaffolding) may push us over the schedule.
I think that I have no choice but to find a small contractor to do some of the exterior projects such as upper deck. I also need to desperately find a drywall team to go through the downstairs as quickly as possible. There is a lot of square feet of drywall that has to be installed, taped, mudded and textured. That could possibly take two weeks just in itself.
I think you are wise to hide the view of the neighboring house from the new family room. Those support pillars are hideously unattractive. Your fence redirects the view towards the right direction.
Newell Comp
After 2 weeks on the market, they have dropped their price $50k to range of $1.1mil to $1.5 mil
My personal opinion is that they need to drop their range to just below $1 million to start getting interested buyers that are searching for a house under 1 million
I think your analyst is spot on! $1M is a tough psychological barrier to break through. Those guys need to flip that place fast to come ahead in their game… may not happen as quickly as they wanted to.
Parking Patio Door!
The Anderson patio door arrived today and my carpenter already has it installed. I wanted to install it immediately to avoid any potential damage if it sat around somewhere near the construction. Unfortunately, as he was unpacking one of the panel doors we found a big gouge out of the exterior vinyl clad. This would be fixable if it was the interior wood, but the gouge in the vinyl cladding actually compromises the weather proofing on the door.
Just great… now I get to spend hours on the phone (already have) trying to convince them it happened during shipping, take a bunch of photos and start filing out a bunch of forms to try to get the panel replaced or repaired. I don’t think they can repair it.
Photos loaded
Love that door. Like I said upstream…we have an Anderson sliding frenchwood door. It’s 21 years old and looks and operates like new. Also vinyl on the outside, wood on the inside.
I haven’t decided whether to paint the interior wood white, which would match all the other trim… or try to stain it to highlight that it is a solid wood door. I’m afraid that staining it just wouldn’t go with the design. Although maybe I could stain it some kind of cool greyish tone.
Garage Door
I have found a compromise for the one car garage door at the front of the house. The landscape designer came up with a gorgeous custom made design, but it is just not in the budget. So, my agent and I searched for a compromise and we have found a flush style front door that comes in different colors.
Here is what I am going to order… $600 shipped vs. $2,100 for the aluminum and glass door
http://www.thebigdoor.com/garage-doors/choose-your-design/steel/traditional/amarr/terratone/flush-panel
Deck Railing Decision and Budget
Over the weekend I worked hard on my budget and estimates. I am probably going to be spending close to $120,000 to complete this project (depending on how much landscape and hardscape I do). We are still thinking that the maximum asking price for this property is about $950,000. However, I did some analysis and there are only Three properties with 4 bedrooms listed for sale that are under $1 million right now. So, I think we are in a good spot to get buyers to view the property.
If I do the entire landscape plan that the designer laid out it is going to cost about $20,000. Definitely not in the budget. So, I have to scale down to the changes that will bring the most bang for the buck.
I have worked hard to find the lowest cost solution for a glass railing across the upper deck. In the end the cost will probably be about $3,500 to remove existing metal railing, reinforce deck to accept a top mount railing system, materials, installation and the glass panels.
It will cost me about $350 to reinforce current metal railing and repaint it.
Unfortunately, another wish list item is going to have to fall off the list Long discussion with my agent during a walkthrough yesterday and she says to just keep current railing and make it nice. And we are going to have to keep the thin deck planks because they are in OK condition - just need painting.
Landscape Design
The landscape designer dropped off a final plan full of plants, garage door design, gate design, etc.
I cannot afford to do even 80% of all these great ideas. He has fancy plantings all the way down the steps on south side of house - no one is even going to be looking down that side of the house during the purchase period.
But, here is what we are going to do:
Change out garage door (see above)
Build a nice gate at top of driveway with a horizontal design (unfortunately, not the cool frosted glass and redwood custom gate)
Remove the lattice in the upper part of the fencing to left of garage area and replace it with a little horizontal design to match the gate
Build out the fence to left of garage door so that it covers the area where trash cans are stored
Pull out all the red brick in the front of house. Use red brick to build terraced planters. The design called for poured concrete planters, but I don’t have the money for that. I am going to repurpose the red brick. Then we will paint up the planters to cover up the ‘brick’
Cut back deck to just the area under the overhang
Budget for a big pour of concrete to create seeded aggregate sloped walkway and front walkway with stairs to front door
All we can afford down on Parking Patio is a seeded aggregate (or colored concrete) pour of concrete to make a nice area
Cannot do the pergolas in the design - too much money and not allowed in the set back
Plant with one tree to cover meter mess and another tall planting to left of small window
Each planter terrace with have a single species of something drought tolerant
He specified:
Bottom planter = dwarf mondo grass
Second Planter = dwarf lavender
Third Tier = Jack Sprat Flax